Photograph by: Dave Sidaway
, The Gazette

At the age of 48, Barbara Freedman ran her first marathon in a time of 3: 59.58. Seven years later at 55, she dropped her time to 3:33.34. Last year, at 60 years of age, she crossed the line at 3:50.13.

"That’s damn respectable," said the Montrealer who, when she’s not running, is the dean of Instructional Development at Montreal’s Dawson College.

Freedman’s accomplishments fly in the face of the commonly held theory that age slows us down. Up until a few years ago, nobody questioned studies suggesting that after the age of 35, aerobic endurance deteriorates as much as 10 per cent per decade. But it’s performance histories such as Freedman’s that have caused researchers to take another look at the effect aging has on athletic performance.

"Less attention has been paid to the fact that reductions in endurance performances can also be caused by lifestyle changes (e.g. higher occupational or social demands like starting a family)," stated Dieter Leyk in a 2009 study published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine.

Leyk uses marathon finishing times as an indicator of athletic performance. His initial findings, based on a review of 160,000 marathon and 140,000 half-marathon finishers between 20 and 80 years of age, indicated that times stayed pretty stable until about 50 years of age. Even after 50, he says, the decline in performance wasn’t as drastic as previously reported.

"Our main finding is that there are virtually no relevant differences in marathon and half-marathon running times of subjects aging from 20 to 50 years," said Leyk in his 2006 research paper titled Age-related Changes in Marathon and Half-Marathon Performances. "Moreover, the age-related performance declines of 50 — to 69-year-old participants are just in the range of 2.6 to 4.4 per cent per decade."

Yet despite this seemingly telling statistic, finishing times don’t tell the whole story behind a runner’s success. According to Leyk, performance-related factors such as training volume, body weight, body mass index, etc., also play a significant role in how long it takes to cross the finish line.

Freedman says her running improved considerably when she started training under the guidance of a coach. The resulting change in her training and preparation led to some of her best marathon performances at an age when many runners are seeing the opposite effect — a steady increase in their marathon finishing time.

That doesn’t mean that she hasn’t felt her age. She has. Which is why Freedman reduced her training load slightly (from five to six days a week to four days a week), added cross-training to her workout schedule and got rid of some extra pounds that were becoming increasingly difficult to lug around while on the run.

According to Russ Hepple, an exercise physiologist at McGill who studies aging, Freedman’s intense training, experience and healthy lifestyle were strong determinates in helping reach her potential. He also suggests that every athlete, regardless of their age, has a window of opportunity to improve given the right training, lifestyle and health conditions.

And then there’s Keijo Taivassalo, a 73-year-old Torontonian who just happens to be Hepple’s father-in-law. He’s another outlier who is seemingly untouched by the march of time.

Taivassalo ran his first marathon in 1979, posting an impressive time of 3: 22.54. Twenty years later, at the age of 60, his marathon time was 3: 12.00. In 2004, he ran a 3: 15.12 marathon and was crowned Canadian champion of the over-65 pack. In 2011, at 72 years of age, he still managed to finish sub-3: 30 at 3: 27.40.

What’s interesting about Taivassalo’s running history is unlike Freedman, he has never trained under a coach and his regimen hasn’t changed much over the decades. So that rules out better training as a reason why he has kept his speed — though he does admit that it was easier to keep pace when he was younger.

"I have to work harder to keep the times up as I get older," Taivassalo said.

Still his consistency over the years is just as impressive as his finishing times. Poor marathon performances often have nothing to do with age, but are the result of injuries, illness, weather, poor preparation or poor race-day strategy. Yet he has only exceeded the sub-3: 30 mark a few times in a marathon career that spans more than three decades and includes more than 42 marathons.

Researchers don’t know why people like Taivassalo and Freedman continue to perform at a level long thought out of reach of people their age, though there’s an assumption that it’s related to differences in lifestyle, genetics, disease and other factors that nip away at performance.

What he does acknowledge is that a tolerance for high-intensity training is a strong factor in reducing the effects of an age-related drop in athletic performance.

He also points out that there’s not much going on aging-wise between 48 and 60 years of age, especially when compared with the age-related changes that occur in the gap between 25 and 48.

"Not everybody is impacted at the same time and in the same way," Hepple said.

So while the secret to maintaining your athletic vigour is elusive, the important message is that athletic success is possible at any age and that no matter when you start, your best race is still ahead of you.

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